What unique teenage social media use means for nonprofit and education campaigns

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting of a New York-based nonprofit called DoSomething.org, which was enlightening. If you’re unfamiliar, DoSomething.org is the largest organization that rallies and organizes teens and engages them in social causes. They often work with large companies like Staples and Foot Locker to carry out meaningful campaigns that also tie back to corporate interests in some way. You can check out some of their recent campaigns here.

How to throw a meeting that doesn't suck

Now, let me first get this out of the way: These folks at DoSomething.org know how to throw an annual meeting! What could have been very boring was an interesting mix of young people in the audience, short talks from leadership, and panels of interesting outsiders, including some people I really enjoy reading and listening to — Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, and Lee Brenner. It took place in the beautiful Scholastic facilities in SoHo and they capped the 4-hour event with a cocktail party on the roof. And the first 100 or so people to arrive (including me) received a free Seth Godin book, V is for Vulnerable — and it’s big and bright pink, so everyone on the streets of New York asks you why you have it and thus you end up talking about DoSomething.org — kinda brill.

This is one valid use of Seth Godin’s very Dr. Seuss-like book “V is for Vulnerable“

But enough gushing about how wonderful DoSomething.org’s annual meeting was and how so many different organizations should consider emulating their approach to landing their messages within a fun environment.

Teens and tech

One of the clear trends of the meeting was the realization by DoSomething.org that teens are extremely engaged with technology and especially mobile technology, and teasing the audience with some of their current and near-future plans about how to leverage mobile in their upcoming campaigns. And, if you listened carefully (particularly if you’re older than Gen Y), you would detect something else — that teens use technology differently, and use different technology, than adults.

If you work in a government agency engaging teen audiences (DMV targeting new drivers), the health and medical industry (a health organization promoting youth fitness), or K-12 education, I hope you’re not mastering Twitter or Pinterest. Teens don’t use them.

Panel discussion about “Teens and Social Movements” at the DoSomething.org annual meeting with (l-r) Aria Finger (DoSomething.org COO), author Seth Godin, professor and author Clay Shirky, and media entrepreneur Lee Brenner.

Josh Miller wrote an interesting blog post a little while back called “Tenth Grade Tech Trends,” in which he extensively interviewed his 15-year-old sister about technology her and her friends like and dislike during the winter holidays. The results are interesting. Here’s the intro:

A few months ago, my fifteen-year-old sister told me that Snapchat was going to be the next Instagram. Many months before that she told me that Instagram was being used by her peers as much as Facebook. Both times I snickered.

Learning from past mistakes, I took some time over the holiday break to ask my sister many, many questions about how she and her friends are using technology. Below I’ve shared some of the more interesting observations about Instragram, Facebook, Instant Messaging, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, and FaceTime. I hope you’ll find them as informative, surprising, and humbling as I did.

You can read his article in full, but let me briefly summarize a few of the more interesting things Miller found.

• • Facebook is too “addicting,” and “you end up getting lost in it” and she only visits Facebook after her Instagram feed is exhausted. Speaking of which…
  • For her, Instagram is for photos of people, self-expression, connection — not photos of beautiful sunsets and amazing eggs Benedict. It’s also a place to follow “celebrities and bands.” Which is somewhat different than…
  • She said most of her friends stopped using Tumblr after they reached high school: “Tumblr is mostly middle schoolers…They just reblog stuff.” She mostly consumes photos, and is only a fan of “idols” like Cobra Snake (yes, be worried parents). But at least she uses Tumblr, unlike….
  • Miller’s sister had nothing to say about Twitter, because she doesn’t know anyone who uses it. When asked by her brother where she “discovers links,” she literally didn’t know what he meant. She also didn’t know what Buzzfeed was:

• I don’t read links. I don’t read blogs. I don’t know. You mean like funny videos on Facebook? Sometimes people post funny links there. But I’m not really interested in anything yet, like you are.

• Speaking of not knowing what you’re interested in…Snapchat is apparently right up there with Instagram in popularity, because it is, basically, communicating with no purpose: “It’s a way to connect with friends when you don’t really have anything to say.” So…basically the opposite of how traditional communications professionals think about communications – landing messages when you have something to say.

For teens, social media and mobile technology is primarily about short-form asynchronous communications for reasons of self-expression. So, if you’re a social media lead at an organization that in whole or part wishes to engage teens, I hope you’re not thinking too much about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Better get your SnapChat on.